A Bold Green Turbine-Powered Chicago

One hundred years ago, in 1909, architect Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett completed a document called the “Plan of Chicago,” which, to use the words of The New Yorker, “determined the shape of modern Chicago.” Now, in an effort to build upon the work of Burnham and plan for the next 100 years, Big. Bold. Visionary: Chicago Considers the Next Century presents the work of nearly three dozen architects and planners with a vision for the windy city.

As part of the Burnham Plan Centennial, the Chicago Tourism Center, 72 E. Randolph Street, will host the exhibition, which has proposals loosely based around six themes: Big Plans, Catalysts, Public Spaces, The Lakefront, Towers, and Transportation.

One specific proposal, CTA Provocation, by Robert Benson of 4240 Architecture caught our attention. The proposal combines urban scale wind turbines with a new, near silent mass transit system. The turbines seem to be some kind of semi-gyroscopic design that would take advantage of the city’s wind and provide electrical power for transportation. Kind of interesting … what do you think? See the other proposals.

Oh. Just realized I replied to a comment spam from a traffic-mongering comment spammer with a spywared, adwared and malwared website. I shall regret both replying and clicking on that guy’s link all weekend long. (Perhaps there should be a more careful screening of overly laudatory comments.) Am now off to make sure his website didn’t damaged my computer too much.

America has had its ‘Hey-Days” it is downhill from here, on fat asses, in front of the “Magic-Boxes” sent to entertain us, from Asia, while they build schools and gain Science and technologies we can no longer understand with our GED’s and community college level mental exercises! Chicago has had the money and resources to excel in the scholastic field, but preferred football players to intellectuals, and socially has cultured gangs, gang rapes, and gang killings in the streets Johannesburg style, over the norm for, say, Beijing, where commerce, civility and education reign! America, you have both eyes blackened, self- inflicted, and you are dope infested – imagine! in another country, Mexico, they have wars on the streets over who will sell dope to Americans! You want to rule the world? You want to lead the world economically? in Science and technology? Militarily? Fvck off and grow up! It doesn’t work that way! If some asshvle tries selling you windmills for the future, remember: he is still just selling windmills for a buck or two commissions, he is no guru for the future! The future has long passed Americans who squandered their opportunity for all the glitters and numbs the mind! Now: Live with it! You chose this path, and irreversibly so! The Asian community is getting their chance now, it is their turn! and if they do better! Oh Well! America, you had your day in the sun! Too Bad! P.S.That “Grand Illusion, our superiority Militarily in the world? Mannable only by conscription now, and dying as we speak, with our shrinking population! Wind mills in Chicago to solve the American dilemma! For shame! for commissions, but for shame!

You are so freaking negative about America. It’s horrible if you live here man, it really is. You should learn to look at things in a glass half-full type manner and stop being a critic on how things are done differently from Asian culture. But if you live in Asian than I know where you’re coming from lol everybody seems to hate the United States. I say enjoy your life and make the best of what you’re offered.

Your retarded friend. I’m from chicago, and I meet more and more intelligent peple in the most unlikely places every day, and guess what we talk about? String theory and the singularity. I’m a freshly graduated highschool student. I barely graduated, and probably know a lot more about science than you would want to. Because the school system does’t show that people are learning doesn’t mean they aren’t. The absence of evience is not the evidence of absence. As for the hood, go find a country with any slums and tell me you won’t find shit worse than in America idiot.

I am amazed that designers are still playing with horizontal-axis wind turbines when vertical-axis turbine have shown themselves to be more reliable, efficient, simple, and cheaper to design, build, and maintain.